We have similar 20L's / dosing plans in the works at the moment. I also have a friend who has family in Gainesville. Kinda cool.

I like your tank. I bet your going to have great growth. Can't wait to see. Keep us posted.

I too noticed that we're doing similar things with our 20's...funny enough, I'm originall from the MSP area (Eagan, specifically)! I kind of miss the fish/plant resources back there. Not much to choose from in north central FL.

Hoping to get some good growth and that planting well off to begin with will give me a boost. Definitely will be updating as much as possible!

The wood is beautiful! Plant choices are sooooo nice! Stocking...have you seen the dwarf Cory and the dwarf Mexican crawfish and Amano shrimp for the maintenance crew? They are very good cleaners and very entertaining to watch!

Received a EZ TDS meter, not to use for my aquarium but it was fun to play with...

Tap is 195 ppm. Tank is around 300-310 ppm, but I've just started fert dosing.

And just as a general warning to others...

If you get RO from your LFS, for whatever reason (I use it for carnivorous plants, not fish, which is why I bought the TDS meter), don't always trust them. I tested the 5 gallons I bought and it keeps registering at 210 ppm! So worse than my tap in that regard.

Granted, it's only a $20 meter so nothing very scientific...but scary to say the least. Not sure if their membranes are exhausted and I just caught it at the wrong time or what but I hate to think what issues that could cause to people who don't catch the problem.

I like the idea of more compact growth on crypts, never thought of it like that. Sure a positive outlook! I just had a melt from my most established plants. I was actually doing a rescape and pulls the plants out. I thought maybe I had em out for to long. Never happened to me before so I was sure surprised.

Yeah I had a red/bronze for a while when I first started in a low tech tank and it stayed nice and compact planted near the front. Upgraded the lighting and it ended up getting too big. I'm not a big scaper but I think they make a good transition between the foreground plants and background stems. Don't want them blocking out the things near the back.

It's hard to tell in the other pics because the leaves were all tangled up still, but the current crypts had leaves reaching the surface. Huge established root systems too. Most of those seem to have melted (except the spiralis which looks like an out of place Val) but there's newer, lower growth.

I'm just hoping for a tank full of healthy plants, I tend to get too finicky moving plants around and it usually turns out worse. I'm less than a week in so there's still a lot of time.

I got lucky with the wood, just wish it would sink already...

My new goal is to stop messing around with moving plants all the time. Set it and forget it type mentality. I believe that I'll see some fuller growth when I stop un rooting the plants every month and give them some time to really establish themselves in the miracle grow

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